FICTION
Some Treasures Are Not Worth Looking for No Matter How Crucial They Seem
Not why ask how
The fan made a familiar clicking sound, and Maggie looked up reflexively. She'd been feeling out of control lately, like a creature of habit and simultaneously flighty, who flinches at the slightest sounds.
She adjusted the temperature of the room as it began to feel like nighttime. A fan wasn't really needed, but the humming noise it made while rotating slowly helped her feel calm. A nostalgic association she doesn't actually recall, but it really feels like one.
Maggie's habits helped her get through most of the day. For example, she knew how to heat up a can of soup, but she didn't know what it actually was. Maggie has a strong recollection that it's food, and sadly that's where the familiarity ended.
Every evening, around the same time, she felt an urge to go for a walk. Putting on her bulky grey coat, Maggie opened a hatch in her roof, proceeding to climb outside. Her surroundings were dark as usual, but she felt at home in the gloomy atmosphere.
Two moons shone high up in the sky, lighting a path forward and moving alongside her as she traversed some distance from her shelter.
She took a different route every day, marking her progress with tiny flags she made from some cloth and twigs. Charred pieces of wood were abundant, and so were rags of various textures.
On her leisurely walks, Maggie came across many wonderful objects. They were often semi-buried into the ashen red ground and sometimes strewn across, all of which she made a note of mentally.
Maggie collected anything she considered potentially useful, like black rocks that left a dusty trail behind them, thin white cylinders that could act as a better base for her flags. And odd objects like buttons, glass shards, and metal scraps that she decorated her home with.
She put her ear to the ground one day and felt like she could hear things. Hollow screams echoing, sharp successive blasts, fast footsteps, much quicker than hers at the moment, and a whooshing sound accompanied by the putrid smell of burning.
My mind's playing tricks on me again. There's nothing here.
Nobody but me.
When she started to feel tired, Maggie returned home with the help of the markers she planted today. The air was dry and chilly, and she zipped her jacket all the way up. Another blurry feeling flooded her mind. There used to be a cold season, which used to be her favorite.
The rest of her night was pretty ritualistic. Maggie didn't own a clock or calendar, and her shelter was windowless. There was no one to tell her what to do, but her body and mind operated on a routine of their own.
She kneeled on the ground every night before sleeping, hands folded on her mattress, and spoke to someone. Maggie didn't know who she was talking with or why she was doing it, but she did it anyway.
It always made her feel better. She didn't plan ahead or decide the content of her communication — words and thoughts sort of flowed out of her. Today, in particular, Maggie found herself asking for more information. She so desperately wanted to know a few things.
Who am I?
Why am I here? How did I get here?
What is my purpose?
Not all her little customs were this dismal. One of the most enjoyable ones was inspecting the items she'd collected that day under a handheld glass that made things look bigger. She kept what she wanted, pretty things, nostalgia-inducing bits, and bobs, and of course, the useful stuff.
The rest got back to the ground during her walk the very next day.
She found a wiry little thing today, which to look at was utterly lackluster. But, Maggie knew better by now; she needed to follow her instincts, even when they — especially when they didn't make a lot of sense.
Before she could wonder about its purpose, she had connected one end of it to a socket in the wall and another to a ceramic brick-like object, with glass on one side. It might have been the first thing she collected, or maybe she already had it with her from before…before this place.
Stop it. Don't pressurize yourself to remember; it only brings pain.
The slim brick lit up, displaying a monochrome picture of a fruit with a bite taken out. It took a few minutes to figure out the rest, but as it turns out, Maggie knew how to use this device as the back of her own hand.
Can a rectangle be someone's best friend?
The room filled with a warm glow as she adjusted the brightness. It fit her fingers perfectly, and for a few seconds, Maggie felt elated — happy even, like she'd never felt before. She could know now…everything.
There were pictures of her and some people she didn't recognize, flat lays of food with some mushy green substance spread atop a piece of bread, and libraries of music and books. Maybe she could finally start to piece together hidden bits of memories and answer her own questions.
And then she saw it all, news clippings, videos, messages, and posts…and instantly wished she'd never fired up this device. Maggie's insides screamed at her, urging her to stop, but she couldn't.
She saw what we did to each other, how we attacked the planet that was our home, and the hatred that brewed in every single interaction. Anger, ignorance, spewing vitriol, misplaced blame, endless cries for help, and choosing the wrong thing over and over again.
Mass shootings and burning mounds of fire, none brighter than the ones in our hearts. Soulless eyes and marching troops, a slow, methodical dance of death. Disease swarming the cities, lines for food, and cyanide.
Unimaginable displays of indifference, cruelty towards each other, an end brought on by self-created problems, with no desire to do better.
She wanted to take it all back—just go back in time. Shut down this device and retrace her steps back to her bed of warmth and reading of an old book to discover something she'd missed the times before.
Every night she took a few pills through an automatic dispenser. Red, blue, yellow, and rainbow-colored that resembled an old flag she used to own. A white one emerged today, something to do with memory…
Maggie took some things with her the next day and tossed them off a hill. She didn't trace her path that day, never wanting to find the phone again. She was happy, she realized, blissfully ignorant. Whoever had decided to remove her memories had made the right call.
She knew everything she needed to know.
Maggie woke up the next day as if it were her first. She put on a cup of tea and inspected some tiny bulbous objects that she had been growing on a piece of old wood. They were called mushrooms once upon a time.
She continued reading a book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy…space travel, didn't that used to be a huge thing…
Anyway, what does it matter now?
She didn't ask for anything that night. While on her walk the next day, two days after the unfortunate incident with the phone, she vividly remembered something her old self rehearsed in front of the mirror every morning. It seemed like it was ages ago, and maybe it was.
Just be…she said out aloud. There's no need to figure out the rest.